Two more you should check out. These are very different one one another, and from other ryes out there...

One is Knob Creek rye -- Jim Beam's fourth rye offering. 100-proof, no age statement, and one of the most flavorful ryes I've tasted.

The other is Dad's Hat, and it's being distilled and aged by Mountain Laurel Distillery just around the corner from you in Bristol, PA. It's available in PA through the LCB state stores. I don't know if they're shipping interstate yet, but NJ should be a potentially early market for them.

The other is Dad's Hat, and it's being distilled and aged by Mountain Laurel Distillery just around the corner from you in Bristol, PA. It's available in PA through the LCB state stores. I don't know if they're shipping interstate yet, but NJ should be a potentially early market for them.

At least I hope so. Can't get any of it here either, although I've tasted some of the original white dog. What they're marketing now is also white dog (while the rest ages), but I believe they've tweaked the distillation process a bit since when we tasted it (right after they began distilling). You should be able to get some (you have to order online from the LCB and pick it up at your local state store). I know you're not the greatest fan of white whiskey, certainly not as much as me, but try it anyway and let us know what you think!

Better yet, since the July Bardstown bash will be before we get a chance to get back to PA, you could pick up two bottles for me (I'll pay you then unless you need $ up front) and we'll open one there on Friday or Saturday where everyone can taste. That way you don't even have to buy a bottle for yourself just to taste it, and we'll have an unopened one for our collection plus whatever's left (probably a lot, considering how much most of us don't really care for unaged rye whiskey )

** Since it relates to the Bardstown thing, I'm re-posting this in the Watercooler section, along with a further suggestion.

I don't want to hijack the thread. Maybe this could be moved to its own topic?

There are three versions of Dad's Hat.

One is white rye dog. Really good -- if you like white whiskey (I do)

The second is aged rye. This is very young, but the formulation is INTENDED for a very young rye whiskey. It's not simply a rye whiskey that hasn't been aged enough. I believe the age of this whiskey is measured in months, not years, and the distiller (Herman Mihalich) has determined that it has reached the maturity he is targeting. It is a VERY good example of what can be done with minimal aging, maybe the best I've tasted.

The third expression isn't available yet. It will be a four (or more) year old rye whiskey. The formula (both mashbill and brewing/distilling techniques) are quite different from the current aged rye; the process is designed for a longer-aged rye whiskey. All three of these are targeted at different markets and will be quite different from one another. As unaged and mimimal-aged ryes go, both of the currently available examples are far higher in quality than all but a few of the other new distillers' products IMHO. I can barely wait to taste the longer-aged version!

John, what in your view might make the difference between a rye intended to be consumed at a few months of age (as I gather) and one aged to be straight and more?

I always thought of a rye mash as something that had predictably different flavors on a continuum from white new whiskey to 18 years or whatever.

Based on what you've noted, it sounds like aging method is not the criterion. I wonder if it has to do with distilling out proof (possibly higher for spirit meant to be drunk newer). Mash content would seem non-determinative to me either way, but again we're just speculating.

Well, I'm not a distiller -- I don't even play one on TV. But I do know (as do you) that there are many ways to distill a cat.Your mashbill, your fermenting processes, where you make your cuts in distilling, and many more factors can be manipulated to produce distillates with a wide range of characteristics. All white dogs are not alike, as those of us who actually enjoy that liquor readily understand. And the way they interact with wood, temperature, oxygen, and other influences is also quite different. A distiller who proudly proclaims that he makes his whiskey the same way as his daddy and granddaddy etc. all the way back to Columbus would not understand that (and they don't), but the best of the craft distillers do. Many are veteran distillers of spirits other than aged whiskey before beginning to lay barrels away. In this case the distiller began with rye whiskey right off the bat, if you can consider years of pre-work "right off the bat".

What's wrong with rye whiskey aged for a year or less in tiny barrels? Well, for the most part, it's that it sucks. Why? Well, it really isn't the barrels (although the five and ten gallon ones aren't good). And it isn't really the length of time, at least not completely. It's the juice that you're putting into the barrels. If you want whiskey that actually TASTES good in a few months, you have to start by making whiskey DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED for that purpose, not the kind you'd make if you're going to store it for several years. Just what the differences are, I don't know (and wouldn't tell if I did), but the result is quite noticeable.

It's probably also more similar to the type of rye whiskey one would likely have been served in a New England tavern in the early 1800s.

What will be released as Dad's Hat Straight Rye Whiskey is made differently. It is another rye whiskey altogether, which is intended (and needs) to age for a longer time. Just how long isn't known yet. I suppose when it finally stops getting better.

Well, all makes sense, but I'd guess the main factor is a higher-distilling out proof so that the spirit is less congeneric than for most straight whiskey. Perhaps too the amount or type of rye in the mashbill is a factor (perhaps less rye in the version intended for early consumption, more rye in the one to be aged 4 years or more).

This explains certainly why Canadian whisky is so palatable at 3 years old. Of course in its case, most of it is grain whisky distilled to a very high proof. But still it proves the general point I think that all things being equal, a less congeneric spirit (fewer co-products of fermentation in the distillate due to being distilled out at a high proof) will be more palatable at an earlier age than a more congeneric one which requires years in wood to remove the "off" tastes.

That's my guess, and thus perhaps the rye mash in this case is distilled-out at just under 160 proof while the straight version may go 20 or 30 points under, something like that.

I'll be in Kentucky soon and will try to find the product we are discussing for an "in-depth" tasting.

As always in the wild and wacky world of spirits and distilling, distilling-out proof is not always determinative. I've read that Woodford Reserve's make at Versailles comes off the second spirit still at just under 160 proof. Nonetheless, most would agree that it is a very full-flavored whiskey even at 5-6 years old, as can be seen from the 4-grain version issued some years ago, other all-Versailles iterations that have emerged, and even the regular Woodford Reserve (you can taste easily the Versailles-distilled component in it). Now, this is due IMO to the fact of using pot stills, just as in Ireland, triple-distilled pure pot still whiskey, also made from a mash in which raw grains play a telling role, also is fairly assertive in taste.

And so still type, to which you alluded as well John, is important too. Beer stripping columns seem to remove more, or different, congeners than pot stills even at the same end point of distillation proof.

So perhaps different stills are used for the two products we are discussing. Maybe some adjustment (reflux or other) is made to one still to result in makes with different amounts and types of fusels and other congeners. The eau-de-vie-type still used by many craft distillers allows flexibility in this regard I understand.

If it's Dad's Hat you're speaking of, Gary, you won't find it in Kentucky yet. You can buy the white dog and the young version in Pennsylvania (the older aged version is not ready for release yet).

Both the fancy-pants European pot/column hybrid stills and the large industrial columns have the abiility to switch different plates in and out of the process as needed in order to isolate the congeners they want included and excluded, and I believe the more artful craft distillers (and the more computerized majors) are adept at doing just that.

Indeed but I don't think the majors do draws though (remove specific congeners from the plate at which they volatilize), they use reflux and of course different sizes of columns but they don't take anything out of the spirit before condensing (or after) as far as I know.

EllenJ wrote:If it's Dad's Hat you're speaking of, Gary, you won't find it in Kentucky yet. You can buy the white dog and the young version in Pennsylvania (the older aged version is not ready for release yet).

Both the fancy-pants European pot/column hybrid stills and the large industrial columns have the abiility to switch different plates in and out of the process as needed in order to isolate the congeners they want included and excluded, and I believe the more artful craft distillers (and the more computerized majors) are adept at doing just that.

John, I finally saw a bottle of Dad's Hat that contained brown sspirits. They just hit the shelves here in PA.Joe